Dossun! Gasenki Battle

Overview

Dossun! Gasenki Battle ("Dossun! Stone Battle". Dossun is Japanese onomatopoeia for a heavy crushing or slamming noise, such as those caused by falling rocks; Thwomps in the Mario series are named Dosun in Japan for this reason) is a puzzle game exclusive to the Super Famicom. It was published by IMAX and developed by an unknown Japanese developer.

Hawk, Ruu and Ed - three champions who have harnessed the might of Power Stones through rigorous training - fight against the forces of darkness which covet the Stones' energy for themselves. Players take one of the three champions and fight through a series of increasingly more powerful opponents. A two-player mode also exists and has more of the game's opponents available as playable characters.

The game was never released outside of Japan but received a fan translation from the Aeon Genesis group in 2000.

Gameplay

Dossun! Gasenki Battle's gameplay consists of dropping columns of two or three pieces in height into a game grid. The player cannot turn the column around, but they can change the order of the symbols from highest in the stack to lowest. If three or more symbols match up horizontally, vertically or diagonally, they disappear and cause the stones sitting on top of them to drop into the empty space.

The player character and their opponent can be seen duelling at the bottom of the screen (similar to Super Puzzle Fighter). Whenever a line of symbols are cleared they enhance the equivalent combatant's damage in some way: three swords allows them to throw a dagger; three rocks leads to a dragon familiar attacking the opponent; three potions will slightly heal the playable character. Hearts, which are very rare, will increase the player's maximum HP when cleared. There are also purple "dummy" blocks which can be cleared but provide no other benefit than freeing up space on the player's grid.

The heroes also have special powers that can be unlocked by creating chains or are stored for later use. These can involve removing a number of the player's stones while causing the opponent's to stay suspended in the air.